At the eighth floor I could see her, through the glass. When I got out she began more whispering. I was to give her a head start, then slide around to 819 and go in without buzzing or knocking. When I had that straight she took a long look around and ducked around a corner, with a tiptoe, guilty look. I counted twenty, then followed along, watching the numbers. The door to 819 was open a crack, and I stepped in and closed it after me. Then arms were around me and lips were against mine and she was pressing up against me and trembling. It was dark, but by the light from the street I could see a grand piano, some chairs, and at the far end of the room, a sofa. I carried her to it, held her close, and kissed her some more. She locked her arms around me and kept kissing me and catching her breath in little short gasps. “... You surprised, Jack?”
“At you?”
“That I can be so — demonstrative.”
“Not with the it that you carried around.”
“Really, Jack?”
“You always did get me.”
“You never said anything.”
“Did anything, you really mean.”
“Well, you never did.”
“With pigtails hanging down your back?”
“I’m as old as you.”
“You’re still pretty young.”
“You really liked me?”
“Why, I used to stand in the wings while you were playing Rachmaninoff Prelude and think how I’d like to put my arms around you, from behind, while your hands were there on the keyboard, and—”
“Yes, Jack? And—?”
“Like this.”
With that I made my first grab at something that meant business. She pushed my hand away, but I found a zipper, and slid it and it slid pretty easy. Then she stiffened. “... Somebody’s outside.”
She pulled up the zipper and I snapped on a light. She wiped my face with her handkerchief. There came a knock on the door. “Who’s there?”
“Your milk, darling.”
It was Mrs. Legg’s voice and Margaret let her in. When she saw me she acted surprised, but no more than surprised. “Well, of all things!”
“Had to see the studio, you know.”
“But of course!”
“Pretty.”
“Lovely!... Pet, you mustn’t forget this any more! She’s started skimmed milk, Jack, and it’s done such wonders for her, slendered her down so her figure is divine. One wouldn’t believe it’s one and the same girl!”
“It’s taken weight off her all right.”
“Well, Mother, do sit down.”
“No, it’s getting late — well, just for a minute.”
She talked of the party, and how nicely the boys had knocked off the music, and quite a few things, and you’d have thought that a guy and a girl and a studio at three thirty in the morning were just one of those things that happened. But her eyes were cold, and they meant go, so after a couple of minutes I looked at my watch and gave an imitation of a whistle. Then we were in the hall and then in the elevator, going down.
“Jack, how did she—”
“Don’t blame me. I laid low, even when—”
“I know you did! How could she know we were there? I told the board no calls until noon, then hung the don’t-disturb card on the door, and I know nobody saw me go up—”
“I even ducked the watchman.”
Margaret never paid much attention to what went on in the hotel, but later on, I found out if she had painted a green line from her bedroom to 819 she couldn’t have left a plainer trail than by the don’t-disturb card and the call block through the exchange, two smoke screens the old lady always kept an eye on. And when she pulled the freight car up to the eighth floor, which was reserved for women alone, and left it there, that made it simple. But we didn’t know about any of that then, and all we did was stand there in the lobby and whisper, have a quick kiss good night, and make a date.
So I began going with her. It all turned out bad, and I’ve said mean things about her, and maybe will say more. It seemed to me, and still does, that she was a spoiled, self-centered girl, but of course what I really held against her, and what she held against me, was that while I liked her a little bit I didn’t like her much, and not enough, after that one time, to pull her zippers, though of course I mumbled a lot about how wonderful it would be if we didn’t have to do our courting in the Goldfish Bowl, as we called the studio from then on. If I could have lived my life as I wanted to live it, I don’t think I’d have showed up at the Cartaret once a year. But I had no life to live. My money was gone, so those twenty dollars and thirty dollars every month didn’t come any more. And I couldn’t get any work. I was still an A-1 mechanic, and getting better from what I was getting in college, but there was no work. Even my father had none. In the house was nothing but gloom, whispers, and nerves. The Cartaret was a place to go, where there was something to do, and she was somebody to do it with. When summer came and Mr. Legg offered me a place on the desk I took it and tried learning to be a room clerk. I guess I did, somehow. Anyhow, I got so I could put up the mail in less than an hour, the worst chore a room clerk does. I figured out one thing: alphabetize everything, so all D. P. Jones’s stuff comes together before you start putting it in his box. Then you don’t have to look him up eight different times.
“Jack.”
“Yes, Mr. Legg?”
“Let’s talk about your future.”
“Time somebody did.”
“Have a cigar?”
“Thanks, I don’t smoke.”
“How many summers have you worked for us now?”
“Two.”
“I thought it was more.”
“No, my sophomore summer and last summer.”
“You graduate this year, Margaret tells me.”
“In June.”
“What had you thought to do?”
“Well, I’m taking my B.S. in mechanical engineering, and I had thought of going to Detroit and trying to get started there, but the way I hear it, things are pretty shot in the automobile factories, with labor being laid off all the time, and no technical people being taken on, on account of their own men, the ones already laid off, having first call. Of course, until the last couple of months, that hadn’t worried me, because I could have fallen back on football until things get better, but the cracked kneecap I got in the Georgetown game isn’t improving. I don’t limp, it’s nothing that’ll bother me, but it’s taken about two seconds off my speed. I mean it’s stiff. I—”
“That doesn’t upset me at all.”
“Yeah, but I played some pro, if you have to know.”
“I suspected it.”
“And — now that’s out.”
“I’m relieved. I think very little of sport.”
“To me, it was a means to an end.”
“May I stress that word ‘end’?”
“It’s ended, all right.”
“Then we’ll pay no more attention to it. Jack, you’ve impressed me most favorably, the short time you’ve been with me. How would you like the hotel business?”
“Well, what do you think?”
“I think you’d make a go of it.”
“Is this an offer?”
“... It could be. It could very well be. I’ll go so far as to say I’d like it to be. But — you created the situation. It’s you that’s here morning, noon, and night, and it’s you who would continue to create a situation if you came in here permanently. Jack, before we discuss offers, I’d have to know your intentions toward Margaret.”